Things I Liked Last Month: October 2024
Reading and roguelikes
Welcome to another dispatch of Things I Liked Last Month! Last month I wrote about ‘5 Things Baldur's Gate 3 Taught Me About GMing and Game Design’, I also released ABODE 2nd Edition, my gothic horror family tree-building RPG! Check it out on Itch, and read my behind the scenes of my design here!
A busy month! But now for the recommendations:
Balatro
I’m massively late to the party on this one, but I started playing Balatro! I’m a huge fan of games that take an established game people are familiar with (like Poker) and put a new spin on it, and Balatro does that perfectly! I feel like this will be my new go-to roguelike for a quick game between doing things. With an endless mode and hundreds of different builds, I’m not gonna finish it anytime soon.
Uncertainty in Games
I frequently mention my love of randomless game design here on the blog, and this book - Uncertainty in Games by Greg Costikyan - is such a great resource for talking about that! Most TTRPGs rely on heavy randomness in their mechanics, but Uncertainty in Games lays out a number of other ways that games can create uncertainty - which Costikyan believes is the core reason games are exciting. It’s inspired a couple different game ideas in me, one of which I’m exploring right now!
Ballionaire
Released as a demo for Steam Next Fest this month, Ballionaire is a pachinko roguelike where you build the board as you play. I really enjoyed the demo with its cute art and simple design. I can’t wait for the full release! The demo is still up on their steam page until the 4th of November, so check it out while you can!
Links
From Nebula, How We Convinced Everyone on our Show They Were the Mole, the behind the scenes of The Getaway, which I recommended in July’s dispatch.
Curious Archive Kind of Hates Elves
Another banger from Jacob Geller: What We Don't Talk About in "Spec Ops The Line", I also really enjoyed his Nebula-exclusive companion video: Does Six Days in Fallujah Deserve the Infamy?
Thanks for reading this dispatch of Jackalope Mail! Let me know what you’ve enjoyed this month in the comments!